As I was reading The Game of School, I started drifting back to my days in high school. Before I start talking about myself as a high school student, I’d like to just note that many of my previous teachers I had in my adolescent education days would find it very odd that I am going into education and teaching. Me as a high schooler: not intrusively motiving and not really caring about the school curriculum. I wasn’t interested in excelling in my studies and I wasn’t interested in graduating at the top of my class. What I was interested in was making sure I got out of high school and I would do the bare minim in order to do so. All c’s was my motto. (hey, I got into college). Like I said, as I was reading The Game of School it brought me back to my high school days. I definitely played the game in high school. Thinking back on it, I believe I was just too bored with the content I was being taught. I did not have any room for creativity and every class was exceptionally dry. I do not even think we read any sort of classic literature. My high school was broke. We continually fell into below the 50th percentile on all state-wide tests. So playing the game of school at my high school, was pretty easy. As I am thinking about being a teacher and thinking about how I want to run my very own classroom, I know that I do not want to allow for my students to play the game. Especially being an elementary school teacher. If they start the game early, they will only get better and better at it. As a teacher I want to show students that I love learning and that learning is the greatest thing on this earth because I strongly feel it is what makes the world go round. If we didn’t learn, we’d be stuck doing nothing. Every day we learn something new! To me this is incredibly amazing. The smallest task we do in a day can in turn, be something that is most valuable in the future. I was heart-broken to have read some of the things in this article and I was heart-broken because at the time of me ‘playing the game,’ I didn’t know up until this point, that I was in fact a victim. This article or chapter, puts a lot into perspective for me, not only for me to evaluate my high school days, but to make sure my students don’t become pawns. I do not really know if this will affect changes in American public schools per say, but I strongly feel that it makes valid claims. I see it even in my masters program. I suppose life catches up with you and you're constantly being pulled left and right to fulfill short term and long term goals and maybe school isn't one of them, so you skirt by, but to me learning is so important. If one were to play the game of life, how do you think they'd feel in their old age?
As I was reading The Game of School, I started drifting back to my days in high school. Before I start talking about myself as a high school student, I’d like to just note that many of my previous teachers I had in my adolescent education days would find it very odd that I am going into education and teaching.
Me as a high schooler: not intrusively motiving and not really caring about the school curriculum. I wasn’t interested in excelling in my studies and I wasn’t interested in graduating at the top of my class. What I was interested in was making sure I got out of high school and I would do the bare minim in order to do so. All c’s was my motto. (hey, I got into college). Like I said, as I was reading The Game of School it brought me back to my high school days. I definitely played the game in high school. Thinking back on it, I believe I was just too bored with the content I was being taught. I did not have any room for creativity and every class was exceptionally dry. I do not even think we read any sort of classic literature. My high school was broke. We continually fell into below the 50th percentile on all state-wide tests. So playing the game of school at my high school, was pretty easy.
As I am thinking about being a teacher and thinking about how I want to run my very own classroom, I know that I do not want to allow for my students to play the game. Especially being an elementary school teacher. If they start the game early, they will only get better and better at it. As a teacher I want to show students that I love learning and that learning is the greatest thing on this earth because I strongly feel it is what makes the world go round. If we didn’t learn, we’d be stuck doing nothing. Every day we learn something new! To me this is incredibly amazing. The smallest task we do in a day can in turn, be something that is most valuable in the future.
I was heart-broken to have read some of the things in this article and I was heart-broken because at the time of me ‘playing the game,’ I didn’t know up until this point, that I was in fact a victim. This article or chapter, puts a lot into perspective for me, not only for me to evaluate my high school days, but to make sure my students don’t become pawns.
I do not really know if this will affect changes in American public schools per say, but I strongly feel that it makes valid claims. I see it even in my masters program. I suppose life catches up with you and you're constantly being pulled left and right to fulfill short term and long term goals and maybe school isn't one of them, so you skirt by, but to me learning is so important. If one were to play the game of life, how do you think they'd feel in their old age?